To a large extent I find the choice is taken out of my hands: songs are like cats - they choose you, not the other way round.

I've sometimes deliberately sat down and learned a song for a particular reason or occasion, but often it refuses to stay learned. But there are hundreds of songs that I never consciously learned: they just decided to stay in my mind. Some of them I didn't particularly like, but they must have "spoken" to me in some way.

Trad, pop, music hall, whatever - it's the individual song rather than the specific genre or origin that's important to me.